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Friday, May 17, 2013

Sepia Saturday: Turning the World Upside Down

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to
share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt shows a line of
children draped across a bar viewing the world upside down. One photo in my great-aunt Velma Davis Woodring’s
scrapbook from her freshman year at Harrisonburg Teacher’s College (now James
Madison University – Go Dukes!) suggests the ladies of HTC did their share of
viewing the world upside down too:

However, nothing turned the 1920s world upside down like the
flapper. A poem in Velma’s scrapbook announces
that the modern woman is different from those of previous generations.

The Flappers Choice

There was a little flapper girl

Who bobbed her hair and skirts;

And she was known in town as one

Of its most vampish flirts.

Her face was powdered – coated,

With a heavy smear of red,

Which came off on the pillow

When at nite she went to bed.

She laughed and smoked & danced

In perfect happiness.

Some people said she’d go to - - - -

Whenever she was dead.

She soon upset their theories

And went to heaven instead.

When St. Peter questioned her

Beside the pearly gate

And asked her what she’d ever done

She answered him quite straight.

He let her in; she took up her harp

. . . .

There the white ink is so faded that I cannot make out
the words. What a pity. If Velma wrote this, she did Dorothy Parker
proud.

Judging by Velma’s scrapbook, bobbed hair ruled the day
at HTC.

"Courtney G"

Velma, Bill Porter,
Leta LeVow, Unknown

Bill Porter, Leta LeVow, Velma

Velma Davis (Woodring)

But that wasn’t always the case. In fact, HTC tried to discourage students
from cutting their hair. Student
teachers were expected to keep theirs long or at the very least disguise the
awful truth with hairpins and nets.

Then in 1924 Mrs. Beatrice Varner entered the
picture. The new dean of women was the
perfect combination of attractiveness and ability. She set the example of good taste in dress
and standards of conduct. No doubt the
administrators and faculty were confident that under Mrs. Varner’s leadership this
flapper business would soon end.

Those thoughts were short-lived, however. Mrs. Varner attended a conference in Atlantic
City, and while there she treated herself to a new haircut.

Mrs. Beatrice Varner
(from the yearbook 1926)

When she returned to campus, the president of the college
just gave up. From then on students –
even student teachers – were allowed to follow the example of the dean of women,
a woman who possessed the spirit of the flapper and turned the HTC world upside
down.

Varner House - Built in 1929, the home economics
practice house was named in honor of Beatrice Varner.
I'm not sure how this building is used today at JMU.

If you want to see people standing on their heads and
children at play, please visit Sepia Saturday.
Without a doubt, there will be something there that will turn your world
upside down.

I feel like I've played a dirty trick on everyone not having the full poem, but that's how it goes sometimes. It's a real tribute to Mrs. Varner that she didn't get fired over that haircut. She must have been too valuable to let hair get in the way.

Without those few enlightened teachers, I think the memories of our schooldays would be far more dreary.

As with Bob, the hair length rules were very restrictive when I was at boarding school. The school barber came regularly, and you had to have it cut, whatever the length. There could be no hair covering the ears, and if you came back from the holidays with your hair too long, you were sent on a special trip to the barber. And crew cuts weren't just frowned upon - that was considered taking the mickey and you were likely to be in trouble unless you had a medical excuse.

I am sure your great aunt would not have anticipated that you would share these pictures with the world one day !! My daughters are pretty possessive about crazy images of themselves, they don't trust me not to blog them !! That is pretty strange really as they "Facebook" much worse.

I sometimes wonder what my great aunts would think about my blogs. I hope they'd be amused and proud, not embarrassed or horrified.

My girls have appeared only a couple times in my blog, and the pictures were from their early years. I do my best not to use them. There are several I could have used for this week's prompt in which they really were upside down!

I guess we can add our own ending to that poem of yesterday! Very nice. I'm always a bit envious when I read your posts, you are so lucky to have first such an interesting and wonderful family to be from, but also to open up a family album and explore their days. You are blessed Wendy, in so many gifted ways.

Now I'm blushing. I do feel lucky to be from the family I'm from. But I'll admit I haven't always been grateful enough for what they've left behind. Really Velma -- only ONE year of college photos and far too few name tags?? In reality, it's more than many people get, so I should be happier. Thanks for reminding me.

Delightful stroll through Flapper times. At a stage of life now where I cannot abide my hair becoming long and wonder how the women managed to keep their long hair back then without blow driers and the like. Interesting flapper poem there too..

Velma and her pals must give you great pleasure to recreate their stories, Wendy. Each one is a winner and this one is especially good.

What I enjoy from reading their history is that they are such perfect examples of that great wave of female empowerment that exploded in the 1920s after women achieved the right to vote with the 19th amendment. Previously, young teachers were terribly controlled in everything such as their employment based on staying single, or their salary capped one level below a male teacher. The many classroom photos that Sepians have posted in the last two weeks show a lot of contrast between the teachers of pre-1920 and those post-1920. A woman changing her hair style was one way to celebrate that liberation.

You are so right, Mike. The photos give me some idea of what my great-aunt's everyday life was like. What an exciting time to have lived. Today things seem to move fast, especially technology. I'm sure the changes seemed fast in the 20s too.

That Bill Porter is killin' me! She's on almost every page of Velma's photo album, but I do not see her in the yearbook at all. I've even looked at yearbooks online through Ancestry and can't find her.

Interesting idea about the tattoos. I was at the doctor's office recently and struck up a conversation with a very tattoed and pierced woman and a little girl. I assumed the woman was the child's mother but no -- her grandmother.

Your great-aunt Velma and her friends seemed like such a fun-loving group! And that last photo of Velma is beautiful.

I actually did a Google search for that poem. First I searched for the title of the poem...nothing. Then I copied the first two lines of the poem and...ta da! Your blog showed up in the first two results! HA! I guess we'll have to make up our own ending.

The pictures seem to capture the decade perfectly. I suppose when we think of recent historical times we think in pictures (particularly those times since photography has been around). Any of these would act as a perfect signpost for the twenties.

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About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net